JOMO vs FOMO: my new year’s unresolutions

Year after year, I write a document (and even a blogpost) with my yearly goals and expectations and I tend to be pretty detailed and extensive about it. With a long set of professional and personal goals and a lot of focus in getting the most out of my time, my relationships, potential career paths, or investment returns.

Well, this year I plan to do the opposite.My biggest resolution for 2019 is to have less resolutions, if any.

I want to allow myself to embrace the JOMO, the joy of missing out, after all these years of living in a constant FOMO, fear of missing out. Last year I became 40, and while I am coping with some dignity through my midlife crisis, and I have not bought a Harley Davidson yet, I do feel that most of my last years I have been an addict to achieving more and in less time.

And guess what, there is no easy way to fulfill this addiction. Any new incredible milestone I have achieved in life, like buying a house, having kids, selling my first startup, raising lots too much of money, joining a fancy corporate gig, has always left me with a desire for more. But this year, I plan to fight that feeling fiercely.

I want to be more bored this year, sleep a few siestas on the weekend, improvise sometimes on the piano, write some poems and then throw them away…, with no specific order and no attainments nor KPIs attached to any of them. I want to read bad books and fully enjoy it. I want to imagine games with absurd rules with my girls, draw horrible paintings and overcook tortillas.

I have restricted access to social media in my phone and I have taken out all notifications. While I am sure I will still check all of those way too much, at least it will be a conscious decision and a bit less of a dopamine triggered event.

I want to have my space to find the person I am becoming, now that I will not be in any 40 under 40 list forever anymore ;), and not letting anyone else define that for me.